post your chicken coop pictures here!

[Intheswamp]

Chickens don't need cold water but I'm sure they would prefer it like most living creatures do. That said, the simplest, cheapest solution is to keep all water in opaque containers/pipes to reduce any interaction with light and keep the whole system in the shade, all day. My barn typically is a few degrees cooler than outside so I keep a door to the barn open to allow air flow. My coop is attached to the barn and shares the roof with it and all materials and water are kept out of the sun. I added an exhaust fan to pull air from all openings to vent into the run (all wire) and the coop stays pretty comfortable. I have one more vent to open but have to get some wire to protect it. Short of running a recirculating refrigerated tube system I can't think of anything that would significantly cool the water.

As I said in an earlier post...I won't be trying to give them brain-freeze but rather attempting to keep the water at a palatable temperature for them is the goal. I figure a good chunk of ice in the water cooler would hold the water to a nice temperature for several days...probably keep it cool until it needs refilling. It is my understanding that if the water gets too hot the chickens will stop drinking which then affects egg production. Except for the really hot times they'll be getting it ambient...unless I'm feeling mighty kind. The NWS shows your local temperature to be 74F with 48% humidity...right now we are at 91F with 47% humidity. We're supposed to hit 97F tomorrow and will hit highs of 95F+ through Monday...things are all relative, I guess. The cooler water might not matter to the chickens but it'll make me feel better.<grin>

I'll definitely be keeping the water in the shade. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
Shade is easiest... I dont use nipples here.... or founts ... just three gallon tubs with a float valve... The water is always cooler when its deeper....

 

[gpeters3]

Shade is easiest... I dont use nipples here.... or founts ... just three gallon tubs with a float valve... The water is always cooler when its deeper....

Actually, my chickens cool their own water. The pipe is centered under the nest boxes with at least a foot of air all around and the way they keep chasing each other and flapping their wings............even Pharaoh didn't have it that good

 

[MeepBeep]

Yes, I agree with you about the hot water in the house...but the hot water heater is probably 30 feet from the shower.  I can grab a spot on the outlet line coming from the hot water heater that is that is at least 2-3 feet away from the heater and feel heat.

Sure you can feel heat, but it's a fraction of what it is inside the tank... Just for giggles I just went and grabbed the outlet pipe of my water heater, no one has used any hot water today so it's been sitting for several hours, and even 6"-12" above the water heater it was only 'warm' no where near hot like the water inside the tank...

On the subject if you have 'running' water to the coop you can provide fresh cool water by flushing out the water with a timer.. I do this for my llama and goat water once a day using a sprnkler timer so they always have fresh cool water... The short of it is that I 'overflow' their stock tank with fresh water for 10 minutes, this flushes out the hot water and replaces it with fresh cool water... You could in theory do the same with chicken water, just install an overflow near the top of the chicken watering bucket and then using a sprinkler timer to overflow the bucket several times a day...

Or a small submersible pump could be installed that circulates the water in the pipe so it cools uniformly... This could be as easy as fishing some fish tank air line tubing down the PVC pipe and then pushing the cold tank water down the fish tank tubing... This would also work in the winter to circulate the heated water int he pipes...

 

[Chicken Egg 17]

Yes I know that's why I have been waiting to get the new coop built but with my gram in the hospital and stuff we haven't had time to get anything done. But within another week or two I am hoping to have at least something started.

Well the new coop can't get built any faster turning and moving the chickens away from the ones that pick on others and turning them around and then they turn back around or move somewhere else, it's like 21 toddlers quit pecking me turn around, move over your in my spot. This is going to get old moving them every night and I have chickens and so does my neighbor but the fox just went over through he woods and heading to there place and a few of mine wasn't even in the house yet. But my cousins chickens are over there so we texted the neighbor to make sure the chickens are away and to keep a look out.

 

[thechickendude5]

my chickens with my dads turkeys and moms chickens mine are the cochins.

 

[thechickendude5]

man i wish my chickens could live in something like that.

 

[bruceha2000]

Quote:

That was my thought on Ed's 8x8 or 8x12 decision. 8x12 would be a nice storage/potting shed if he ever stopped keeping chickens. If you can repurpose a shed into a coop why not the other way around?

....

Or a small submersible pump could be installed that circulates the water in the pipe so it cools uniformly... This could be as easy as fishing some fish tank air line tubing down the PVC pipe and then pushing the cold tank water down the fish tank tubing... This would also work in the winter to circulate the heated water int he pipes...

That would be my suggestion. If he doesn't want to recirculate from the end of the pipe back to the (hopefully) insulated tank, pushing the cold water into the end of the pipe will force the water between the end and the tank back toward the tank and the water in the pipe would be cooler. My small reptile waterfall pump would so either.

I don't know if it has been mentioned in this specific instance but I know that some people put out misters or sprinklers in the shade in really hot weather and their chickens enjoy it. We have thankfully not gotten that hot yet but my girls spend most of their time in the shade on sunny days, hot or not.

 

[Chicken Egg 17]

It easily roosts 6 to 8 chickens, they will only be in to roost

I agree with 2-3 adult birds. If you over crowd they arnt going to keep laying.

 

[Chicken Egg 17]

Then there is the Rare Tinamou yep they are real and the bird is too. bird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_tinamou and yep the eggs are that shiny deb

Are you even allowed to keep these things? I would love to have a few to breed with the chickens to see what color of eggs they would lay or something to make some sort of hybrid. Wouldn't that be cool to have a chicken to lay eggs colors like that and be that shiny. But I wouldn't know where to get any or are is it even allowed to keep these. They are cute little birds.